GARSINGTON OPERA

28 MAY – 18 JULY

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The Garsington festival is no longer at Garsington, but has kept the name. Garsington was founded by the financier Leonard Ingrams and his wife, Rosalind Moore in 1989. The Ingrams had bought the manor house that had belonged to the Bloomsbury patron, Lady

Ottoline Morrell.

The couple wanted to stage opera in their gardens, much as the Christies had, and so built a 500-seat auditorium. However from the start Garsington distinguished itself in its programming which mixed well-known works with the less well-known. The very first season presented Mozart's Così fan tutte with the British premiere

of Haydn's (perhaps deservedly obscure) Orlando paladino.

By 2008 the Ingrams family decided they wanted their home back and a new location was found for the festival fifteen miles away at the idyllic Getty estate in Wormsley. A remarkable new 600-seater house was designed that could be assembled every

year and taken down at the end of the six-week season.

This year the company will perform a rare early Verdi comedy, Un giorno di regno plus Mitridate, Re di Ponto, Rusalka, and Fidelio. garsingtonopera.org

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Where to stay

Cliveden House Hotel is 15 miles south of

Garsington at Wormsley